In Joseph Campbell's master work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a grand case is made that many of the most successful narratives of all time share similar qualities and attributes. Campbell refers to this as the “monomyth.” This lesson concerns itself with giving students the chance to further develop the literacy practices that have been encountered in the introductory lesson to this unit. Students will engage in literacy events that prompt them to ponder this essential question: what makes a hero? Furthermore, what journey does a hero take in his/her quest along the timeline of a narrative? Lastly, we will explore the relationship that a hero character has in relation to other characters. Complex narratives that have withstood the test of time such as The Odyssey or The Bible all feature many reoccurring themes and plot structures. Furthermore, the relationships that play out between a hero character and the supporting cast of characters in these epic tales are not merely made of chance happenings; the authors have given careful consideration to the interplay of these characters and how their lives will play out.
The first class period for this lesson will begin as all my classes have begun: with music. As an educator, I usually play music of choice in between class periods as students play musical chairs with their various classes that reside in their schedule. The song of the day will not be selected by chance either. I will be playing “Heros and Villains” by Brian Wilson, a song that sings about the wild west, and the relationship between the “good guys” and the “bad guys.” Of course, this isn't integral to the main part of the lesson, but I would like to illustrate that I am quite compassionate about education and try to give consideration to all aspects of teaching and synchronize them whenever possible. If the students enjoy the song, the seed will perhaps be planted in their brains and they may care to look it up later. For their convenience, I list song titles and artists on the board under my “Today's Tunes” section. Students will begin the day by copying this sentence (from The Hero with a Thousand Faces) in their notebooks to frame our studies for this lesson: “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” This quote above will not only give the students something to ponder, but also a chance to view the rest of the lesson through a main point from Campbell's work. I will read aloud this quote to the students and give them each a chance to raise their hands and tell me what the quote means to them. After the majority of the students have had a chance to interpret this quote and its meaning to them, the students will be prompted to think of well-known stories that adhere to this quote. This approach will allow students to utilize a new idea or concept while viewing the concept through their own life experiences and hopefully, through experiences that are reflective of their home lives and/or communities. This should take roughly ten to fifteen minutes of a fifty minute period.
If students have not already drawn the conclusion as a collective that many of Disney's classic animated films follow Campbell's narrative of the hero, I will draw attention to the Disney films that have followed this plot line. As part of my overt instruction, I will point out that Christopher Vogler, a hollywood film producer and writer, has guided many Disney screenwriters on the use of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This guidance has been extremely influential on the creation of such classics as Aladdin, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast. Following this, I will play a short clip of an interview with George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars series. This interview may be found on the DVD editions of the Star Wars trilogy that came out in 2004. Most people (students included) know who Lucas is, and it is generally accepted that his work on the original Star Wars trilogy was excellent and well-executed. If some students are unaware, this will be a good opportunity to not only introduce some seminal work in American film, but a strong argument can also be made that it would be a culturing experience. As many may be quick to point out, of the original Star Wars trilogy, Lucas only directed Episode IV: A New Hope. Despite this, he still had the most creative control out of anyone on his series and made sure that the directors that he hired adhered to his original artistic vision. These points will be touched upon during the overt instruction lecture.
A trailer of Star WarsEpisode IV: A New Hope will be played. The exact trailer will be extracted from youtube and can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gvqpFbRKtQ. After the trailer is played, students will be prompted to examine similarities in the western genre (covered in the last lesson) and Star Wars. This will provide a link between the instruction and literacy events of the second lesson and the current one. After we have had an ample informal class discussion, I will replay the trailer again, this time instructing students to think of the role of the hero in the narrative as presented by Lucas in Star Wars. At this point, students should be well-versed in the ability to use and discuss film technique and be able to dissect things such as shot, angle, and editing techniques as we view film. Now, students will have a chance to engage in situated practice by doing a think-pair-share exercise. Students will be given ample time (roughly fifteen minutes to twenty minutes, depending on how it is plays out) to think of techniques employed by Lucas and the people in charge of creating his trailer. Before pairing, the students will be expected to compose their thoughts on paper and revise it to be a writing that is as compact and potent as possible. As seen from the trailer, the students will need to identify the hero, and if they know who is “supposed” to be the hero in the Star Wars saga, then they must also examine who is portrayed the most as the hero at the outset of the series. Lucas had not penciled in every minute detail and lightsaber duel into a script sent down from the Gods, with he himself merely a medium to translate. Lucas invented plenty as he went along. He (and assumedly, Fox) also wanted to keep suspense, so a main hero isn't so easily identified by this trailer unless you are familiar with the movie(s) from previous viewings.
The students will have to write using the metalanguage they have been taught. Simply saying, “the shot was cool” will not cut it. The students will be well-versed in cinema language at this point and should be critically literate and quite able to speak intelligently about the various merits of the trailer and the contained shots. Students then will be paired in groups of three with their surrounding neighbors and share what their thoughts were. Following this, the student groups will report in to the class and compare with the class overall. This literacy event shall build upon the media literacy practices that the students have already had.
To culminate the activities of this lesson, students will have to think of a real-life hero to them. This assignment will give students a chance to critically frame the ideas that have been explored throughout this lesson so far. This assignment will give students the ability to take these academically-based ideas and utilize them in the real world, away from the classroom. A student's hero could be a parent, a sibling, or someone who is actively involved in an organization that the student admires (such as the oil spill clean up crew, or a firefighter). This assignment will have three portions to it. For the first portion, students will have to list the events of their real-life hero's life (if they are still living, thus far) and fit the events to the narrative format as outlined by Joesph Campbell in the quote that we have studied from The Hero with a Thousand Faces. For the second portion of this assignment, students will engage in a literacy event by having to storyboard their short film with the pixton website. Students will be responsible for posting these cartoon storyboards on a wiki online that I have created using wikispaces.org. This literacy event will engage students in web 2.0 activities that allow them to use multiple media literacies (film and web 2.0 literacies). Students will have to be cognizant of film technique again as this time, they must chose shots, angles, sets, and costumes, if creative liberties are taken. Regardless of their choices, students must also describe diegetic sound and non-diegetic sound. The lesson will culminate with students having a chance to describe the processes they went through as they completed this assignment. We will pull up their cartoon storyboards created on pixton.com and display them for the class.
To allocate a chance for students to engage in critical framing, students ultimately work in one final literacy event (and subsequently, portion of this three part assignment) by being able to take what has been learned in this lesson and engage in another web 2.0 activity. Students will be responsible for taking an image of their real-world hero and uploading it to voice thread. There, students will need to discuss why they have picked their hero as the subject of their comic storyboard and proposed movie. Students will then be responsible for commenting on three other students' voice threads and e-mailing me to tell me whose thread they had commented on so that I can ensure completion. This will also serve to honor their own lives and utilize the students' prior knowledge.
Formative assessment will occur on multiple levels. The pixton storyboard assignment will be graded on quality and originality. The students also will be assessed on their ability to utilize in-class theories and ideas that have been taken from notes and our study of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In the voice thread assignment, students' grades will add to the percentage factored in on their pixton assignment (as it allows them to further elaborate on why they have chosen this hero). Also, they will be given a completion grade for interacting with their peers on voice thread. Ensuring that this activity occurs will guarantee that each of the students have a concrete purpose and audience and this will broaden their audience from merely me (as the educator). Students will also be adding to a long-term participation grade by their engagement in the think-pair-share.
Objectives:
Students will be able to analyze what makes a hero.
Students will be able to use film knowledge to analyze the technique of editing in the Star Wars trailer.
Students will be able to utilize prior knowledge of film to create a web 2.0 cartoon storyboard complete with film metalanguage and critical thinking.
Students will be able to engage in thoughtful discussion with their peers in a web 2.0 setting.
Sunshine State Standards: LA.910.2.1.4: The student will identify and analyze universal themes and symbols across genres and historical periods, and explain their significance
LA.910.6.3.2: The student will ethically use mass media and digital technology in assignments and presentations, citing sources according to standardized citation styles; and
LA.910.6.4.2: The student will routinely use digital tools for publication, communication and productivity.
In Joseph Campbell's master work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a grand case is made that many of the most successful narratives of all time share similar qualities and attributes. Campbell refers to this as the “monomyth.” This lesson concerns itself with giving students the chance to further develop the literacy practices that have been encountered in the introductory lesson to this unit. Students will engage in literacy events that prompt them to ponder this essential question: what makes a hero? Furthermore, what journey does a hero take in his/her quest along the timeline of a narrative? Lastly, we will explore the relationship that a hero character has in relation to other characters. Complex narratives that have withstood the test of time such as The Odyssey or The Bible all feature many reoccurring themes and plot structures. Furthermore, the relationships that play out between a hero character and the supporting cast of characters in these epic tales are not merely made of chance happenings; the authors have given careful consideration to the interplay of these characters and how their lives will play out.
The first class period for this lesson will begin as all my classes have begun: with music. As an educator, I usually play music of choice in between class periods as students play musical chairs with their various classes that reside in their schedule. The song of the day will not be selected by chance either. I will be playing “Heros and Villains” by Brian Wilson, a song that sings about the wild west, and the relationship between the “good guys” and the “bad guys.” Of course, this isn't integral to the main part of the lesson, but I would like to illustrate that I am quite compassionate about education and try to give consideration to all aspects of teaching and synchronize them whenever possible. If the students enjoy the song, the seed will perhaps be planted in their brains and they may care to look it up later. For their convenience, I list song titles and artists on the board under my “Today's Tunes” section.
Students will begin the day by copying this sentence (from The Hero with a Thousand Faces) in their notebooks to frame our studies for this lesson: “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”
This quote above will not only give the students something to ponder, but also a chance to view the rest of the lesson through a main point from Campbell's work. I will read aloud this quote to the students and give them each a chance to raise their hands and tell me what the quote means to them. After the majority of the students have had a chance to interpret this quote and its meaning to them, the students will be prompted to think of well-known stories that adhere to this quote. This approach will allow students to utilize a new idea or concept while viewing the concept through their own life experiences and hopefully, through experiences that are reflective of their home lives and/or communities. This should take roughly ten to fifteen minutes of a fifty minute period.
If students have not already drawn the conclusion as a collective that many of Disney's classic animated films follow Campbell's narrative of the hero, I will draw attention to the Disney films that have followed this plot line. As part of my overt instruction, I will point out that Christopher Vogler, a hollywood film producer and writer, has guided many Disney screenwriters on the use of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This guidance has been extremely influential on the creation of such classics as Aladdin, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast.
Following this, I will play a short clip of an interview with George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars series. This interview may be found on the DVD editions of the Star Wars trilogy that came out in 2004. Most people (students included) know who Lucas is, and it is generally accepted that his work on the original Star Wars trilogy was excellent and well-executed. If some students are unaware, this will be a good opportunity to not only introduce some seminal work in American film, but a strong argument can also be made that it would be a culturing experience. As many may be quick to point out, of the original Star Wars trilogy, Lucas only directed Episode IV: A New Hope. Despite this, he still had the most creative control out of anyone on his series and made sure that the directors that he hired adhered to his original artistic vision. These points will be touched upon during the overt instruction lecture.
A trailer of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope will be played. The exact trailer will be extracted from youtube and can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gvqpFbRKtQ. After the trailer is played, students will be prompted to examine similarities in the western genre (covered in the last lesson) and Star Wars. This will provide a link between the instruction and literacy events of the second lesson and the current one. After we have had an ample informal class discussion, I will replay the trailer again, this time instructing students to think of the role of the hero in the narrative as presented by Lucas in Star Wars.
At this point, students should be well-versed in the ability to use and discuss film technique and be able to dissect things such as shot, angle, and editing techniques as we view film. Now, students will have a chance to engage in situated practice by doing a think-pair-share exercise. Students will be given ample time (roughly fifteen minutes to twenty minutes, depending on how it is plays out) to think of techniques employed by Lucas and the people in charge of creating his trailer. Before pairing, the students will be expected to compose their thoughts on paper and revise it to be a writing that is as compact and potent as possible. As seen from the trailer, the students will need to identify the hero, and if they know who is “supposed” to be the hero in the Star Wars saga, then they must also examine who is portrayed the most as the hero at the outset of the series. Lucas had not penciled in every minute detail and lightsaber duel into a script sent down from the Gods, with he himself merely a medium to translate. Lucas invented plenty as he went along. He (and assumedly, Fox) also wanted to keep suspense, so a main hero isn't so easily identified by this trailer unless you are familiar with the movie(s) from previous viewings.
The students will have to write using the metalanguage they have been taught. Simply saying, “the shot was cool” will not cut it. The students will be well-versed in cinema language at this point and should be critically literate and quite able to speak intelligently about the various merits of the trailer and the contained shots. Students then will be paired in groups of three with their surrounding neighbors and share what their thoughts were. Following this, the student groups will report in to the class and compare with the class overall. This literacy event shall build upon the media literacy practices that the students have already had.
To culminate the activities of this lesson, students will have to think of a real-life hero to them. This assignment will give students a chance to critically frame the ideas that have been explored throughout this lesson so far. This assignment will give students the ability to take these academically-based ideas and utilize them in the real world, away from the classroom. A student's hero could be a parent, a sibling, or someone who is actively involved in an organization that the student admires (such as the oil spill clean up crew, or a firefighter). This assignment will have three portions to it. For the first portion, students will have to list the events of their real-life hero's life (if they are still living, thus far) and fit the events to the narrative format as outlined by Joesph Campbell in the quote that we have studied from The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
For the second portion of this assignment, students will engage in a literacy event by having to storyboard their short film with the pixton website. Students will be responsible for posting these cartoon storyboards on a wiki online that I have created using wikispaces.org. This literacy event will engage students in web 2.0 activities that allow them to use multiple media literacies (film and web 2.0 literacies). Students will have to be cognizant of film technique again as this time, they must chose shots, angles, sets, and costumes, if creative liberties are taken. Regardless of their choices, students must also describe diegetic sound and non-diegetic sound. The lesson will culminate with students having a chance to describe the processes they went through as they completed this assignment. We will pull up their cartoon storyboards created on pixton.com and display them for the class.
To allocate a chance for students to engage in critical framing, students ultimately work in one final literacy event (and subsequently, portion of this three part assignment) by being able to take what has been learned in this lesson and engage in another web 2.0 activity. Students will be responsible for taking an image of their real-world hero and uploading it to voice thread. There, students will need to discuss why they have picked their hero as the subject of their comic storyboard and proposed movie. Students will then be responsible for commenting on three other students' voice threads and e-mailing me to tell me whose thread they had commented on so that I can ensure completion. This will also serve to honor their own lives and utilize the students' prior knowledge.
Formative assessment will occur on multiple levels. The pixton storyboard assignment will be graded on quality and originality. The students also will be assessed on their ability to utilize in-class theories and ideas that have been taken from notes and our study of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In the voice thread assignment, students' grades will add to the percentage factored in on their pixton assignment (as it allows them to further elaborate on why they have chosen this hero). Also, they will be given a completion grade for interacting with their peers on voice thread. Ensuring that this activity occurs will guarantee that each of the students have a concrete purpose and audience and this will broaden their audience from merely me (as the educator). Students will also be adding to a long-term participation grade by their engagement in the think-pair-share.
Objectives:
Students will be able to analyze what makes a hero.
Students will be able to use film knowledge to analyze the technique of editing in the Star Wars trailer.
Students will be able to utilize prior knowledge of film to create a web 2.0 cartoon storyboard complete with film metalanguage and critical thinking.
Students will be able to engage in thoughtful discussion with their peers in a web 2.0 setting.
Sunshine State Standards: LA.910.2.1.4: The student will identify and analyze universal themes and symbols across genres and historical periods, and explain their significance
LA.910.6.3.2: The student will ethically use mass media and digital technology in assignments and presentations, citing sources according to standardized citation styles; and
LA.910.6.4.2: The student will routinely use digital tools for publication, communication and productivity.